"WHO STARTED IT" is not the point, genocide is. I don't blame few readers who condemned the Palestinians for firing rockets into the Israeli territory, giving Tel Aviv a valid reason to level Gaza Strip. They (the readers) don't know history.

Since 2007, Israel has laid siege to Gaza, controlling its air space, its coast line, its long border with Israel, and via compliant governments in Egypt its tiny border with that country. The fact that these Israeli attacks preceded the firing of primitive rockets from the Gaza Ghetto is both undeniable and irrelevant.

During this time, not a single plane has arrived or departed from Gaza's bombed out airport. The few ships destined for Gaza's seaport have been violently seized by Israel's navy, their crew members arrested if not murdered.

Gazans who stray to close to the fence that Israel built to imprison Gaza's population are shot dead, including a young boy playing soccer earlier this month, whose death predictably provoked the futile rocket fire that Israel uses as a pretext for its genocidal policies.

At the start of the siege an advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister named Dov Weisglass declared that 'the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger'. An Israeli human rights group, Gisha, forced the government to disclose that the defense ministry calculated the minimum number of truckloads of food needed by Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition - and then allowed only half that number to enter Gaza!

Remember, during most of these six years Hamas has been observing cease fires.

Nothing could better illustrate that Israel's siege has nothing to do with the rockets, and everything to do with deliberately inflicting on Gazans conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.

This, by the way, fits the definition of genocide set out in Article 2, Section C of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Israel's siege does not just limit the total quantity of food that Gaza can import but also many specific staples as well as many non-food necessities.

According to a partial list published by Gisha, fresh meat, jam, dried fruit, many spices, and even chocolate are banned. Items used for producing food, such as livestock like goats, cattle, and chicks are prohibited, as are seeds and nuts, fishing rods, fishing nets, fishing ropes, nylon nets for green houses, hatcheries, spare parts for tractors, planters for saplings, etc.

Even children's toys are not allowed in, according to Gisha. Some of the restrictions may have been relaxed amidst the negative publicity surrounding Israel's murder of Freedom Flotilla activists, but the basic strangulation nature of the siege remains.

Most Gazans are refugees or are descended from refugees who fled what is now Israel in 1948 during the Nakba, when rampaging Jewish armies forced them to flee from their homes. Those homes were given to Jewish families, and their Palestinian owners were never allowed to return. The return of these people to their homes was once a key Palestinian demand, one rooted in the Geneva Conventions.

However, over the decades, Palestinian leaders have gradually given up on ever returning to their homes. Even Hamas has offered a truce if Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders, leaving the final resolution of the problem to future generations.

Yet, despite all claims that they simply want to live in peace, Israeli leaders have always pushed for more. Not just more Palestinian land, but recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state in borders that it has yet to spell out.

Putting aside the fact that the right of a state to exist does not itself exist in international law (ask Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union), what this amounts to is asking the Palestinians not just to accept the reality that they will never get their homes back, but insisting that they say that Israel has "a right" to those homes.

It is one thing for people to accept the loss of a stolen item, but it is quite another to expect them to acknowledge that the thief actually had a right to that item. But that is precisely what Israel and its puppets in the White House and State Department have long demanded.

We often hear that the United States and Israel are tied by shared values. Nothing could be further from the truth. The core values of the American state and the Jewish state are diametrically opposed. The United States Declaration of Independence is based on the premise that 'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'.

The American State, at least in terms of its values, is a state of the people it governs. Israel has never been a state for the people it governs. Its declaration of independence is explicit about it being a state for all the Jewish people, whatever governments they live under. It is not a state for Israeli passport holders of Arab descent, and it certainly is not a state for the millions of Arabs in the lands occupied since 1967.

But it is explicitly a state for Jewish people around the world, who are free to come live in Israel simply based on their racial background, while Arabs are excluded from returning to the homes they were driven out of based on their racial background.

We have now heard some government leaders around the world, Obama and others, reiterate that Israel has a right to self-defense (our Anwar Ibrahim is one of them).

No American official has ever spoken of the right of the people of Gaza to self-defense, and it is safe to assume they feel that Gazans have no such right. And judging by some nations' collaboration with and support for Israel's genocidal policies, they actually don't feel that the Gazans have a right to food or shelter either.

And while the Americans still have food to eat and a roof over their head, they have lost the right to a government that represents their interest rather than those of a genocidal foreign power. Welcome to Zionist-run America!

So, to those who keep blaming it on the 'attacks over frustration' by the Palestinians, you should at least imagine stepping into their shoe!

I was out with the wife grocery shopping today and we were both just going through the weekly shopping motions without much fanfare. Then all of a sudden, the runner instinct in us kicked in at the same moment and we both stopped and looked at this particular shelf and uttered at t he same time

'Energy Beans?'

We were instantly perked up as anything to do with running always gets out undivided attention ... LOL! It was a strange sight though cos we never expected to find energy beans being sold in supermarkets here. I normally get my energy gels and chomps from specialty running stores.

So,what did we do? We bought some, like any running crazy people would do ... hahaha! I don't even know if it really is going to work or not but we thought there would be no harm trying them out. They're not exactly cheap though but they're still so much cheaper than the usual energy gels that I buy before my races.

I'll be trying them out during my run tomorrow to see if there is any performance enhancement (somehow I seriously doubt it) for my run tomorrow. I'm expecting it to make me run like Meb Keflezighi :D In your dreams, Nick!

Why was there an Israel–Gaza war in the first place? Resistance to the occupation, say Hamas and many in the international media. What occupation? Seven years ago, in front of the world, Israel pulled out of Gaza. It dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, evacuated every Jew, leaving nothing and no one behind. Except for the greenhouses in which the settlers had grown fruit and flowers for export. These were left intact to help Gaza's economy — only to be trashed when the Palestinians took over.

Israel then declared its border with Gaza to be an international frontier, meaning that it renounced any claim to the territory and considered it an independent entity. In effect, Israel had created the first Palestinian state ever, something never granted by fellow Muslims — neither the Ottoman Turks nor the Egyptians who brutally occupied Gaza for two decades before being driven out by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel wanted nothing more than to live in peace with this independent Palestinian entity. After all, the world had incessantly demanded that Israel give up land for peace. It gave the land. It got no peace.

The Gaza Palestinians did not reciprocate. They voted in Hamas, who then took over in a military putsch and turned their newly freed Palestine into an armed camp from which to war against Israel. It has been war ever since. Interrupted by the occasional truce, to be sure. But for Hamas a truce — hudna — is simply a tactic for building strength for the next round. It is never meant to be enduring, never meant to offer peace. But why, given that there is no occupation of Gaza anymore? Because Hamas considers all of Israel occupied, illegitimate, a cancer, a crime against humanity, to quote the leaders of Iran, Hamas's chief patron and arms supplier. Hamas's objective, openly declared, is to "liberate" — i.e., destroy — Tel Aviv and the rest of pre-1967 Israel. Indeed, it is Hamas' raison d'être.

Hamas first killed Jews with campaigns of suicide bombings. After Israel built a nearly impenetrable fence, it went to rockets fired indiscriminately at civilians in populated areas. What did Hamas hope to gain from this latest round of fighting, which it started with a barrage of about 150 rockets into Israel? To formally translate Hamas's recent strategic gains into a new, more favorable status quo with Israel. It works like this: Hamas's new strength comes from two sources. First, its new rocketry, especially the Fajr-5, smuggled in from Iran, that can now reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting 50 percent of Israel's population under its guns.

Second, Hamas has gained strategic strength from changes in the regional environment. It has acquired the patronage and protection of important Middle Eastern states as a result of the Arab Spring and the Islamist reversal in Turkey. For 60 years, non-Arab Turkey had been a reliable ally of Israel. The vicious turnaround instituted by its Islamist prime minister, Recep Erdogan, reached its apogee on Monday when he called Israel a terrorist state.

Egypt is now run by Hamas's own mother organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is simply the Palestinian wing. And the emir of Qatar recently visited Gaza, leaving behind a promise of a cool $400 million. Hamas's objective was to guarantee no further attacks on its leaders or on its weaponry, launch sites, and other terror and rocket infrastructure. And the lifting of Israel's military blockade, which would allow a flood of new and even more deadly weapons. In other words, immunity and inviolability during which time Hamas could build unmolested its arsenal of missiles — until it is ready to restart the war on more favorable terms.

Yet another hudna, this one brokered and guaranteed by Egypt and Turkey, regional powers Israel has to be careful not to offend. A respite for rebuilding, until Hamas's Gaza becomes Hezbollah South, counterpart to the terror group to Israel's north, with 50,000 Iranian- and Syrian-supplied rockets that effectively deter any Israeli preemptive attack.

"There comes a time when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King Jr.INTERVIEW The following is the second of a three-part interview with Human Rights Party leader P Uthayakumar. The first part is here.

Many now accuse Hindraf and you of being racists but you have a public record of defending Malaysians regardless of ethnicity. Do you think that Hindraf's own polemics is to blame or do you think that Malaysians are generally disinterested in the plight of marginalised communities after years of being divided along ethnic lines?

Hindraf labeled as a racist outfit by no less than prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim and top Pakatan Rakyat Malay and Chinese leaders is a very clever political strategy. It's the 3Ds - 'diverting, diluting and denying' the institutionalised state-sponsored racist policies which victimise the most vulnerable Indian poor. Only in bi-racial 1Malay-sia and in no other part of the world is a cry against racism in itself becomes racism. When Hindraf demands equal rights, equal opportunities and equal upward mobility opportunities for the Indian poor, we become a 'racist outfit'.

For 15 long years, I have tried convincing and engaging for hours with top Pakatan and NGO leaders not to racially segregate the Indian poor but to no avail. I have since given up.

Our very first pro bono case of death in police custody that we took up and had filed in court was that of Anuar Sarip, 31, 14 years ago in 1999. Our unwavering stand for justice for this family ended with the apex Federal Court on Oct 10, 2012 rejecting the claims of Suzana Mohammad Aris, Anuar's widow (centre in photo).

Moreover, the very first pro bono case of applying to the High Court for an unprecedented second post-mortem to be conducted in a death in police custody case is that of Ho Kwai See, 29, just to name a few non-Indian cases.

But of course most of the cases we have taken up involve the Indian poor as they constitute about 80 percent of the victims, completely disproportionate to their forming a mere 8 percent of the population. However, we are not going to be apologetic for focusing on the most vulnerable Indian poor, especially bearing in mind that the Malay and Chinese political and NGO leaders, and the Indian elite appear disinterested for obvious reasons. However, when Hindraf focuses on the Indian poor, we are conveniently labeled as a racist outfit. Why should Hindraf not be the focus pressure group on the Indian poor when the 'evil' Umno has formed the highest political level Cabinet Committee on the Indians and led by no less than the Malay prime minister himself and never such a committee on the Orang Asli, Penan, Kadazan and Iban?

Could you describe what you mean by 'mandore/madorini' and does this mean that Hindraf, besides fighting against the systemic discrimination under Umno-BN, is also fighting against the entrenched class system in the Indian community?

'Mandore' is a term I had formulated as Item 7 of the Hindraf 18-point demands, and was widely used at the height of the 2007 Hindraf nationwide forums. This word shot to fame when I had repeated the same on the live Al Jazeera interview at its studio in the afternoon of Nov 25, 2007 Hindraf rally. It was originally used to describe the Umno, self-serving, cari makan, powerless, front men and fall men MIC mandores who were used to mislead, misrepresent, short change, cheat, dish out piecemeal and temporary handouts and to keep the Indian poor out of the national mainstream development of bi-racial 1Malay-sia.

In return, they are blessed with some token rewards. In the post-2008 general elections era, unfortunately, even the Pakatan state governments have aped Umno, but using their very own pseudo 'multi-racialist' mostly English-speaking Indian elite mandores.

These Indian mandores are being used to give the impression that they can solve the Indian poor problems. Having no or very little power to deliver, they end up doing the old MIC job by dishing out the peanuts 'peruntukan'. Their full-time jobs keep them politically afloat and relevant when in their spare time they dish out hampers, rice packets, small ang pows, mock cheques and feeding Tamil dailies with propaganda.

Moreover, when they eventually fail to deliver, the Indian poor would vent their anger and frustrations against these Indian mandores. A very clever racist Umno political strategy now conveniently adopted by Pakatan. The real power wielding tuans and towkays get away scot-free. The tragedy being the MIC mandores today have been replaced by the Pakatan 'multi-racialist' English-speaking elite Indian mandores.

Do you think that the Indian middle class has abandoned the issues confronting the working class/disenfranchised Indians.

So who is racist now? Why should it not be the Malay and Chinese middle-class not abandoning the Indian poor? After all, we are multi-racial and 1Malaysia. It is the duty of the Umno and Pakatan governments not to abandon the Indian poor. In any event, the Indian middle-class are not in much of a position to help, as are the Malay and Chinese middle-class. The Ananda Krishnans, Gnanalingams and Fernandeses are mere Umno showpiece proxies. Not many people know that Tony Fernandes owns only 7.5 percent of AirAsia shares. However, Umno projects him as Mr AirAsia.

Do you think there is any difference between Pakatan and BN? Could you describe your interactions with Pakatan and do you think that Pakatan has lived up to the expectations of Hindraf?

Yes, we want a change. We acknowledge that Umno is one of the last few regimes in the world that has ruled for 55 long years without a break in the chain. The other regimes being Zimbabwe, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, to name a few. However, Hindraf is not prepared to take responsibility for Pakatan's non-delivery on the Hindraf 18-point demand. We are worried that the Umno institutionalised, private sector racist policies that victimises the Indian poor will not change when Pakatan gets Putrajaya as per the early warning signs we detect in Pakatan's state little Putrajayas. This is the Hindraf dilemma.

Unfortunately, Hindraf only sees a marginal difference if Pakatan claims Putrajaya concerning the Indian poor. As a nation, we expect to see a better system of governance, better police force, less corruption, toned down Little Napoleons, less abuse of powers by government enforcement agencies, etc. Pakatan does not want to engage Hindraf because we champion this cause without fear or favour, refuse to be the Pakatan Indian mandores, refuse to take their 'perks' posts, positions and therefore cannot be controlled. For the record, no one from Hindraf has ever taken up any positions in the Pakatan state governments.

This way we remain independent, non-compromised and able to act in the best interest of the Indian poor. Unfortunately, as it stands we only see a slightly better version of an Umno clone in Pakatan-controlled states concerning the Indian poor.

Besides the racist label, many have accused you of being "stubborn" in your dealings with Pakatan. What is your response to such accusations?

Yes, if Hindraf does not demand delivery of the 18-point demand, does not demand for seats, does not point out Pakatan's racism - which is like Umno victimising the Indian poor - but instead pledge blind support to Pakatan as what MIC does for Umno, Hindraf and I would become the darling of Pakatan and Malaysiakini readers and no more "racist and stubborn".

Racist label for crying out against racism? Stubborn, because we refuse to kowtow to become Pakatan Indian mandores? We cannot help it if we are deemed stubborn in struggling to see an end to the Umno-style government racist policies and the victimising of the Indian poor in the five Pakatan states now and when they get to Putrajaya, which Pakatan most likely would in GE13.

We wish them well. But Hindraf will not compromise on the 'below the water problems' affecting the Indian poor and will continue being the 'stubborn' pressure group, even with Pakatan at the helm at Putrajaya.

We will continue being stubborn struggling to end the tears of the Indian poor of their day-to-day misery for which most see committing suicide as their only way out. This is how serious the Indian problem is. Is Malaysia a civil society? A masyarakat madani?

How does Hindraf view the non-BN Indian politicians and could you describe Hindraf's interactions with them? Do you think there has been a lack of self-criticism in the Indian community or do you think that for so long as a certain section of the Indian community has been under siege that self-criticism would be an unnecessary distraction from the larger social and economic concerns ?

There are 11 and 13 Pakatan Indian MPs and state assemblymen respectively. But all of them were powerless, for example, to stop the demolishment of the aforesaid Kg Buah Pala, Ladang Batu Pekaka Hindu Cemetery (Kedah PAS) or the Ampang Hindu temple by the Pakatan state governments, which Pakatan wouldn't dare do to the Malay and Chinese communities. A Pakatan Adun conceded that he has no powers to even pick up the phone and call the local council president to issue even a 'kachang putih' licence to an Indian poor. What more Felda-like land for at least 100 of the poorest hardcore poor Indians in? No way. All the other Pakatan MPs and Adun are in the same status. But when we refer to them as mandores, they get very sensitive.

Just this morning (Nov 18, 2012), I read an interview of the most senior Pakatan Indian MP. He outlines Pakatan's 'feather weight' success as having fought (with mandore S Samy Vellu) on the dissolution of the South Indian Labour Fund, saving the Sitiawan Indian Association land. He or any of the other MPs and Aduns is powerless to get their Pakatan tuans and towkays to deliver at the Pakatan-state level. For example, the Felda-like 10 acre land ownership for 10,000 of the poorest Indians for land titles or for all 311 Tamil schools, all Hindu temples and all Hindu cemeteries in the Pakatan states in an "all in one go" policy.

We choose not to interact with these Pakatan Indian mandores just as we chose not to interact with the MIC mandores. We go straight for the jugular, the powerful Umno and Pakatan top Malay and Chinese political leaders who wield the real power, and are the policymakers, decision makers and implementers. Malaysiakini Yesterday: The state's war against Uthayakumar

It was a case of "now you see it, now you don't" at Parliament yesterday when the Education Ministry scrambled to amend a written ministerial reply, possibly to avert a backlash from Chinese voters.

Two days ago, the ministry had issued a written reply to Pandan MP Ong Tee Keat who had sought an explanation on the whether there are different considerations for applications to set up private schools, international schools and private Chinese schools.

Ong, who is former MCA chief, had also asked what were the restrictions that were imposed on such schools. Among other issues, the ministry had replied that applications for Chinese independent schools were "no longer open" because such schools run a curriculum not conforming to the national curriculum. By mid-afternoon yesterday, Malaysiakini's Chinese edition ran the news while several Chinese newspapers had dispatched text message news alerts.

Legacy reasons

Following this, the Education Ministry sent out a revised copy of written reply to the press in which references to the cessation of applications for Chinese private schools were removed. Instead, the new reply stated that 60 Chinese independent high schools exist because of legacy reasons. [Scroll down to see comparison of both replies.] "After the Education Act 1961 was in force, some secondary schools chose to adopt the national curriculum and were classified as SMJK, or 'conforming schools', while the rest became Chinese independent schools. "However, independent schools remain at 'status quo' as stipulated in Section 151 of the Education Act 1996.

"This statement is in line with speech by Najib Abdul Razak (as then education minister) when tabling the Education Regulation Bill 1995 on Dec 18, 1995," he said. The revised copy was sent through email to news organisations. Normally, a written reply can only be obtained from the media room in Parliament or directly from the MPs. An Education Ministry official, who requested anonymity, said that written reply that was made available in Parliament was a draft that had yet to be scrutinised by the education minister's office.

English is okay

The written reply comes at a time when Chinese educationist group Dong Zong is on an aggressive campaign for the establishment of several Chinese independent high schools.

The group hasscored a victory in Kuantan, which currently has no independent secondary schools, and is now focusing on getting government approval for another independent school in Segamat, Johor.

Meanwhile, the written reply explained that entrepreneurs were allowed to establish independent schools which used Malay as the medium of instruction or international schools which used English as part of a liberalisation policy.

The entrepreneurs' financial capabilities, teaching strength, specialisation and availability of a suitable location would be taken into consideration. Applications for new Chinese independent schools were however not addressed directly. Contacted later, Ong said the issuance of a new written reply was "baffling" and he has never encountered such an incident in his political career. He added that the new written reply was placed on the bench where he sits in Dewan Rakyat. Malaysiakini

The escalation in the fighting last week between Israel and Hamas caught many observers by surprise. Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 campaign against Hamas, had led to an uneasy calm between the warring sides. And last year's release of Gilad Shalit (the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by militants in 2006) in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners had even given observers hope that Israel and Hamas had found a way to manage their conflict. But then, Hamas attacked an Israeli mobile patrol inside Israeli territory on November 10 and Israel retaliated by assassinating Ahmed Jabari, Hamas's military chief. This time, the violence that has followed has not faded quickly; indeed, the fight is still intensifying.Given the destruction wrought by Israel and Hamas' last major conflict, Hamas' calculations in the lead-up to this round of fighting are especially puzzling. The typical explanation is that Hamas ramped up its rocket campaign earlier this year in an effort to break Israel's siege on the Gaza Strip. Under fire, Israel had to retaliate.That answer, though, is unsatisfying. In many ways, the siege had already been broken. True, the Gaza Strip is tiny, densely populated, squeezed between Israel and Egypt, and dependent on both countries for the passage of people and goods. And all of that makes it a rather claustrophobic place. Yet Israel's efforts to tightly control the area's borders, which started after Hamas won elections there in 2006, had gradually wound down. After the public relations disaster that followed Israel's 2010 mishandling of the Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla, the flow of goods over the Israeli border into Gaza increased substantially. Moreover, the tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, through which most of the goods coming into Gaza are smuggled, became so elaborate that they resembled official border crossings. In fact, the volume of trade that travels through the tunnels could be up to $700 million dollars a year.To some extent, Hamas had a political interest in perpetuating the siege idea, which could be used to foment anger against Israel and drum up popular support. Further, it made sense for the movement to preserve some limitations on the movement of goods into Gaza, since the smuggling industry lined its coffers. Thus, although life in Gaza might not have been all that pleasant for Gazans, Hamas wanting to break the siege is not a compelling explanation for its renewed violence against Israel.In fact, two factors pushed Hamas to ramp up its bombing campaign: competition from Salafi groups and Hamas' belief that its strategic environment had improved in the wake of the Arab Spring. Since Hamas was elected, it has found the Salafi groups in Gaza especially difficult rivals to manage. Fatah, Hamas' main competitor before it pushed the group out of the area in 2006, was never such a challenge: with the Oslo peace process discredited and Israel's retreat from the Gaza Strip largely attributed (at least in the Gazan psychology) to Hamas' militant activities, the remnants of Fatah just couldn't compete. The small jihadi outfits, though, embodied the fighting ethos. And unlike Hamas, they were free from the constraints that governing puts on ideological purity.Under pressure, Hamas repeatedly tried to quell the Salafi threat, and it did not shy from using brute force to do so. The clearest demonstration came in August 2009, when Hamas killed the leader of Jund Ansar Allah, a Salafi group that had openly challenged Hamas' authority, and a number of its members. But short of using extreme violence to suppress Salafism in Gaza, which would have been too costly for Hamas, Hamas could not eliminate the Salafi challenge. It watched with worry as new Salafi groups emerged and strengthened throughout the strip.The pressure on Hamas only increased in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The Egyptian revolution and the subsequent chaos in the Sinai Peninsula were a backwind in the sails of Gaza's Salafis. The collapse of authoritarian regimes in North Africa unleashed a flood of weapons and fighters, which Salafis channeled into the Sinai Peninsula. With the Egyptian military unable to control the area, Gazan Salafis turned the peninsula into a staging ground for attacking Israel. They believed (correctly) that Israel, anxious not to kill its peace accord with Egypt, would not dare to respond directly.Indeed, Israel resorted to thwarting attacks emerging from Sinai and the Gaza Strip as best it could by preventing Gazans from getting to Sinai in the first place. On a number of occasions, Israel preemptively targeted Salafi leaders in Gaza. The Salafis responded by lobbing rockets back at Israeli's southern towns. Periods of quiet between rounds of violence became shorter and rarer.The new regional order presented Hamas with a serious dilemma. As the ruler of Gaza, it could not sit on the sidelines while Israel targeted territory under its control. But it was unable to fully rein in the Salafis without proving once and for all that it was no longer a resistance movement. For Hamas, then, the only choice was to tolerate the attacks. It portrayed them at home as a way to preserve the struggle against Israel. Abroad, it refused to acknowledge any role in them at all to reduce the danger of a backlash. Over time, pressure from Hamas rank and file led the organization to take a more active role in each round of violence.

Yes, that's the ticket. Hamas fires thousands of rockets at Jewish civilians and get rewarded with booty. Why stop? How much more will be pledged to Hamas for firing rockets at Jews whose only objective (and crime) is to live?

German FM pledges 1.5m. euros to Gaza for medical aid JPOST.COM 11/22/2012 German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle pledged 1.5 million euros for humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Speaking in Berlin, Westerwelle welcomed the cease-fire agreed to by Israel and Hamas, calling it "a first move in the right direction," and discussed the need for emergency medical aid for the injured in Gaza.

"Life for people in the Gaza Strip is far from normal. Germany is therefore making available 1.5 million euros for emergency medical treatment there," Westerwelle stated.

"We consider this as yet another contribution towards giving people in the Gaza Strip the prospect of a real future, without which peaceful coexistence will not materialize," he added.

I am posting the following joke for laughs and not for any racist slant. My apologies if this offends you in any way. And to my Patel friends from Penang, esp Mr. Patel whom I met two days ago at the Pos Laju office....and his lovely daughter whose baby is due next March, you all know I love good jokes so no offense please. Thanks to Freddie who sent me this joke.

After sorting through a stack of resumes he found four people who were equally qualified -- an American, a Russian, an Australian and a gentleman from India.

He decided to call the four in and ask them only one question. Their answer would determine which of them would get the job.

The day came and as the four sat around the conference room table the interviewer asked, "What is the fastest thing you know?"

Dave, the American, replied, "A THOUGHT. It just pops into your head. There's no warning that it's on the way; it's just there. A thought is the fastest thing I know of."

"That's very good!" replied the interviewer.

"And now you sir?" he asked Vladimir, the Russian.

"Hmm... let me see. A blink! It comes and goes and you don't know that it ever happened. A BLINK is the fastest thing I know."

"Excellent!" said the interviewer. "The blink of an eye, that's a very popular cliché for speed."

He then turned to George, the Australian who was contemplating his reply.

"Well, out at my dad's ranch, you step out of the house and on the wall there's a light switch. When you flip that switch, way out across the pasture the light in the barn comes on Yep, Turning on a LIGHT is the fastest thing I can think of."

The interviewer was very impressed with the third answer and thought he had found his man. "It's hard to beat the speed of light" he said.

Turning to Patel, the gentleman from India, the fourth and final man, the interviewer posed the same question. Patel replied, (in his Gujju accent!)

My mother's last will and grant of probate came by courier just now. The lawyer had sent it over after all the matters have been settled. As I held the documents in my hands, I was choked with emotions. She was a simple woman but she had foresight. She knew she could not be there for me forever and had the will made. That was long before she was diagnosed with leukaemia.

In life and in death, she had it all laid out for me. I never ran out of the urological supplies that I needed. Her cache of Chinese herbs that she painstakingly simmered over charcoal fire was always laden. The soups were for me to regain my health. Day or night, no matter the hour, whenever I needed assistance, she was there. She was always there.

My mother's last will.

I truly regret that I could not reciprocate the love and care that she had unconditionally showered on me. If ever I am granted a wish, I will wish to hold her in my arms again, no matter how brief that moment will be, to tell her how much I love her; and how much I still miss her after all these years; and how lucky I am to have her as a mother; and how sorry I am for not knowing how to appreciate her when she was around; and how I am a better person today because of her. Because of her…